WASHINGTON, Oct. 6 /U.S. Newswire/ -- The U.S. Supreme Court today turned down a request by a county government and extreme right wing groups asking it to strip protection from seven national monuments. The high court let stand two separate appeals court rulings finding the creation of the monuments by the Clinton administration was a legal use of the Antiquities Act. The extremists lost this argument at the district court and appeals court level. The monuments at issue are the Canyon of the Ancients (Colo.), Cascade-Siskiyou (Ore.), Grand Canyon- Parashant (Ariz.), Hanford Reach (Wash.), Sonoran Desert (Ariz.), and Ironwood Forest (Ariz.) National Monuments and Giant Sequoia National Monument in California.

Attacks on the monuments came in two related court cases. The first challenged the creation of the Giant Sequoia National Monument and the second challenged the other monuments named above. Earthjustice attorney Michael Sherwood, together with attorneys from the Natural Resources Defense Council, intervened to defend the Sequoia National Monument. Earthjustice attorney Jim Angell intervened to defend the other six monuments.

All of the monuments contain spectacular natural and archaeological features deserving of protection for current and future generations. That's why they were created. For instance the Giant Sequoia National Monument contains giant sequoia redwood trees, the largest plants in the world found nowhere else on earth.

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"While the Supreme Court's decision vindicates President Clinton's creation of the national monuments, this is not the end of the fight to protect these unique areas," said Jim Angell of Earthjustice. "Threats remain because the Bush administration appears poised to allow logging and rampant off-road vehicle use despite their destructive impacts on the very objects the monuments were created to protect."

Now we should be on guard for the Rethugs to try to change the Antiquities Act. If they do its yet another nail in their ""trash the environment" coffin. A great campaign issue it will be if they try that since President Clinton's use of the current law has now been backed even by the radical conservative majority on the current Supreme Court.

Didn't Bush declared the abondoned Strip Mine where the last Airplane crashed in Somerset County on 9-11 a National Monument? I can not remember which act Bush used but it is now part of the National Park System (along with the first land fill).

Clinton declared Trees to be national Monument, Bush declares an abondoned and un-reclaimed Strip Mine and a Land Fill as National Monument. See we have progressed from those bad old days of Clinton.

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